Hey guys. I have a couple of quick questions about dry hopping. I know that most usually do it when transfering to the secondary. I was reading instructions on it and they said to stir the hops in well with a sanitized spoon. (Note: The instructions I was reading were not using a secondary and suggested puting the hops in after the vigorous stages of fermentation had passed.) I'm just wondering exactly how most of you do this. Do you put the hops in before you transfer to the secondary and just let them swirl around with the momentum of the liguid to get them mixed in? If someone wasn't going to use a secondary how would you recommend doing so without getting much oxygen in the brew. Thanks for your help.
Blur

Hi LB, I add my dry hops right to the secondary carboy. I have found that pellets really work great and the hop flavors I am looking come out fine. I add 1 - 1 1/2 oz of pellets into the bottom of the carboy and then rack the primary right into the carboy. After a week the pellets completely settle out to the bottom. I have found that flowers are a bit more messy and I have not mastered how to get a hop sack out of the carboy easily. If you throw the flowers in with out a sack you have to fashion a mesh filter on the end of your racking tube to prevent hop remnants from entering your bottling bucket ...

Dry hopping as already stated is normally done at 2ndary or in the case of cask conditioning, at the point of casking. Interesting to note that a period of about 3 weeks or, the maturation period of the beer is required to extract the full benefit of the aroma of the hops. Pellets overcome a lot of this time due to a surface area ratio, in that the greater and rougher the surface area, the greater the yield, so, powdered areas of an amount actually add up to a greater surface area than a single flower etc. If you are worried about sterility at dry hopping during 2ndary then increase your amount of hops by say 50% and add POST boil to the kettle during whirlpool. This will give you good aroma and aleviate a lot of the worries of contamination. Although, it has to be said that the nearer to drinking stage the hops are added the better the effect.

It is not exactly 'dry hopping' but works well. Simply steep your finishing hops in a pint of boiled de-clorinated water for 10 to 15 minutes then add to your secondary or bottling bucket. Boil the water then cool it to 150 - 170 degees. This will sterilize the water and help to retain the hop aroma.